What do certain colours mean to me?
The rain kept us indoors today and we used both classrooms for different activities during the morning. We had free play, story time and meals down stairs and we had active play upstairs. 
Downstairs we played with the soft toys, the dolls house, the scarves and we had fun playing the musical stand near the piano. The stand has a cymbal; drums; chimes and other musical instruments on it. Of course we loved hitting the drums more than anything and Tokutaro shouted ‘taiko’ when he played as he is well acquainted with the taiko through watching his brothers in their performances. We listened to stories in small groups and especially loved the ‘Kissing Hand’ which we have listened to so many times. We love thinking about our mums love being with us all the time, no matter where we are.
We spent time drawing with markers, coloured pencils, pencils and crayons. Our teachers put out a 
drawing table with many different materials on it and we could use it freely. They realized afterwards that sometimes we should have a limited amount of materials as if there are too many, we are not sure which ones to choose. This is especially when we are really little. We had an interesting discussion based on something that was on the wall in our classroom. There were three colours on the wall; blue on the top, green in the middle and brown on the bottom. Shelley documented the discussion and it will be placed on the wall with the colours for you to see. She asked us to name the colours and then we closed our eyes, and tried to see the colour and imagine what each one represented for us. Gento and 
Tokutaro were able to name blue and green and some of us knew the word ‘brown’. Last week we painted blue, green and brown on a piece of paper so this discussion will be used to lead us into working more on the painted sheet we made. We spoke about the blue representing possibly the sky, water, a door; the green reminded us of the grass and also we have green chairs in our school and the brown reminded us of sand. Then we spoke about clouds and what they are and what they do. It was an open ended conversation which gave us the opportunity to just think and talk and share our thoughts and feelings.
Oh, boy, did we have fun upstairs doing an obstacle course. We had to walk on a piece of tape and try 
to balance; then we came to a tunnel so we had to bend down and crawl through it just like we did when we were babies; when we came out of the other end there was a floor piano which we crawled on too. This was so funny because it made music as if we were playing a piano when we crawled on it. Then when we came to the end of it, we had another line to balance on and then there were four markings on the floor that we jumped on. Everyone clapped for us when we completed the course the first time and we felt so proud of ourselves. We all waited patiently on the line before it was our turn and we watched one another so that when it was our turn, we knew what to do. After we had each completed one lap, we all went together and had such fun. We especially liked the tunnel and when we were inside we were like worms crawling under the ground.
We also wanted to thank Yossi and his family for bringing special snack for us called “oznei haman” or “hamantaschen”. Today is a Jewish festival called Purim when everyone dresses up in fancy dress, sings and dances and eats these treats.
Chag Sameach Yossi, the “hamantaschen” were soooo delicious!
Love Shelley, Darren, and Kana